This is a quick reminder that the runoff election for U.S. Senate in Georgia will be on December 2, and there are many ways you can help Democrat Jim Martin beat Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
Depending on how the recount in Minnesota turns out, which won't be resolved for a few weeks, Martin could be the key to getting Democrats to that magic filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Have you started linking to Saxby Chambliss yet? The more people who do, the higher it will appear in search engine rankings. If we can push it into the first ten results for Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, then it will result in a lot of excellent voter contacts. Everyone who encounters the site will be a voter looking for more information on Saxby Chambliss, and we can show them this great website made by an enterprising activist.
Log on to the various blogs where you comment, and click on your user page. Then click "profile." There should be an area where you can write text that will be your "signature," attached to all comments you make.
You want to embed a link to the Saxby Chambliss website. Here is what I did:
Remember that there are many ways to volunteer besides knocking on strangers' doors and calling strangers on the phone. You can help sort literature for the canvassers. You can help stuff envelopes. You can bring a home-made meal to the campaign office for the staff and other volunteers. I heard of one woman in Iowa who used to do laundry for field organizers renting apartments without washing machines. Every hour that staffer doesn't have to spend in a laundromat is an hour he or she can be getting out the vote for Jim Martin.
5. Ask some friends or relatives to make a campaign contribution. Explain to them that this race will affect the Republicans' ability to obstruct the change we need.
Please feel free to suggest other ways activists can help Martin bring this race home.
UPDATE: MyDD commenter ATL Dem made a fantastic suggestion:
In the meantime, I'm also running this Google ad to assist in desmoinesdem's project No. 2:
Hi from Saxby Chambliss
Read about my work in D.C.
Too bad it's not for you!
saxby-chambliss.com
It's getting monster response -- over 15 percent of people searching for "Saxby Chambliss" are clicking it. The bad thing about that is that my $10 a day budget gets used up pretty fast, so if you're of a mind to, go to Google and click on "Advertising Programs" and set up another ad.
This is the diary I had hoped to be able to write Wednesday, but with the closeness of the Smith-Merkley US Senate race was happy enough to write a diary talking about the reasons why Merkley would win, as he indeed has. This diary serves as my review of the Oregon campaign, in what can, without a doubt, be described as the best cycle for Oregon Democrats and other progressive organizations in my lifetime. All of our goals were met and we beat back every single bad ballot measure to boot.
I see a lot of "aw shucks" sentiments in the comments, and I'm sure it exists elsewhere in the blogosphere surrounding our perceived underwhelming performance down the ticket last night. And I understand that.
Well, it wasn't the massive landslide that some thought it could have been, but we still did make some very nice gains. And we still have a few undecided races and runoffs in Georgia and Louisiana to talk about.
Let me put it to you this way. Earlier in the year I came back home from the States to take a job with the Alberta Liberal Party to help them get ready for a March election. Every indicator we had said that we'd be making significant gains -- in fact, the pundits were even talking about the possibility of us knocking off the incumbent party. And they were doing so with a straight face. Come election day, what happened? To everyone's surprise, we lost half our seats and all of our relevance. You don't get a bigger punch in the stomach than that.
When things like that happen to you, I think you learn to find peace with results like last night's.
I was planning on posting a diary reviewing the results of Oregon's elections but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Due to the VERY close numbers in OR's Senate race and the misconceptions out there, it is important that I correct some of them. Please read this as your "chill out" diary.
Alright, one more post before I conk out for good.
As far as the House goes, what exactly did we win last night? Well, let's start by checking in with what we lost:
FL-16 (Tim Mahoney)
KS-02 (Nancy Boyda)
LA-06 (Don Cazayoux)
TX-22 (Nick Lampson)
And what did we pick up? Here's what we know for sure -- 2123 24 seats, by my best count:
AL-02 (Bobby Bright)
AZ-01 (Ann Kirkpatrick)
CO-04 (Betsy Markey)
CT-04 (Jim Himes)
FL-08 (Alan Grayson)
FL-24 (Suzanne Kosmas)
ID-01 (Walt Minnick)
IL-11 (Debbie Halvorson)
MD-01 (Frank Kratovil)
MI-07 (Mark Schauer)
MI-09 (Gary Peters)
NC-08 (Larry Kissell)
NJ-03 (John Adler)
NM-01 (Martin Heinrich)
NM-02 (Harry Teague)
NV-03 (Dina Titus)
NY-13 (Mike McMahon)
NY-25 (Dan Maffei)
NY-29 (Eric Massa)
OH-01 (Steve Driehaus)
OH-16 (John Boccieri)
PA-03 (Kathy Dahlkemper)
VA-02 (Glenn Nye)
VA-11 (Gerry Connolly)
And what's still up for grabs? We're currently sitting on leads in the following districts:
ID-01 (Walt Minnick): With 90% of precincts reporting at the time of this writing, Minnick leads GOP Rep. Bill "Brain Fade" Sali by 4300 votes. Some of the outstanding precincts should add to Sali's total (but not all), so this race is still way too close to call. UPDATE: 95% of precincts are now in, and Minnick is up by 4363 votes. The remaining votes are from Bonner County (where Minnick is leading by 54-46) and Canyon County, a more populous area where Sali is leading by 54-46. Bonner has reported 52% of its vote, while Canyon only has 11% more to go. Looks like Minnick may just pull this off. (LATER UPDATE: Walt Minnick, you magnificent bastard, you did it!)
MD-01 (Frank Kratovil): With 100% reporting, Kratovil leads Club For Growth stooge Andy Harris by nearly 1000 votes. No one's making a call here yet, but I'd be surprised if there are enough outstanding votes floating around that would tip the outcome here.
VA-05 (Tom Perriello): In what could be the biggest shocker of the night, Democrat Tom Perriello is leading GOP Rep. Virgil Goode by over 1657 votes with only one precinct outstanding according to the VA SBoE. (LATE UPDATE: The VA SBoE now says the Goode is ahead by six votes.)
What else has yet to be called?
CA-04 (Charlie Brown): With 100% of precincts in, carpetbagging blockhead Tom McClintock is leading Charlie Brown by 451 votes. It seems pretty cruel, but it looks like Brown might not get a chance to kick that football, after all.
CA-50 (Nick Leibham): With 63% of precincts reporting, GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray leads Democrat Nick Leibham by 50-46 here. (Update: Bilbray wins.)
LA-02 (Bill Jefferson): Democratic crumb-bum Bill Jefferson will face a December general election against Republican Anh Cao.
LA-04 (Paul Carmouche): Democrat Paul Carmouche won the Democratic primary runoff here, and will face Republican physician John Fleming in the December general election. This one could be a chance to avenge Don Cazayoux.
NJ-03 (John Adler): This race was actually called for Adler by CNN earlier in the night (after an extremely bleak start) and Adler declared victory, but now CNN has moved it back into the too close to call column. Myers leads by about 1700 votes with 93% of precincts reporting. (LATE UPDATE: Adler wins.)
OH-15 (Mary Jo Kilroy): CNN and the AP have moved this race back into the undecided column.
SC-01 (Linda Ketner): GOP Rep. Henry Brown is currently leading Democrat Linda Ketner by 53-47 here, and CNN has called this race for Brown. But 26% of precincts are outstanding, and they're all in Charleston County, where Ketner is leading Brown by a 59-41 margin. The Ketner campaign is not yet conceding, believing that they still have a chance at eeking out a win here, based in part on 35,000 absentee ballots from Charleston that have yet to be counted. (Update: The bad guys win big.)
WA-08 (Darcy Burner): With 39% of precincts reporting, Darcy leads Reichert by a mere 60 votes here.
